The Corner Penthouse

There are many movies and/or television programs that have the same title, but are completely different from each other. Usually, it's just a common word or phrase, such as The Awakening. However, there are instances where a title will become iconic in pop culture from its use in a later production, causing the original production to become a forgotten relic. I thought it would be fun to write a series of comparison reviews looking at two such movies and/or television programs.


It! (1967) - What if Norman Bates controlled an unstoppable golem, and the British military had to use a nuclear warhead to stop him? That's the conceit of this British film starring Roddy McDowall as Arthur Pimm, an assistant curator at a museum that receives a grotesque eight-foot statue. Various people are randomly killed - sometimes off-screen - while in the presence of said statue, which give Pimm reason to believe that it may be the cause of these "accidental" deaths. Once Pimm realizes that it's actually a golem, an animated being in Jewish folklore made from inanimate matter, he figures out how to control it. With an unkillable creature under his control, Pimm sets forth to achieve his two goals: becoming the new museum curator, and winning the affections of the former curator's sexy daughter, Ellen Grove (Jill Haworth). Suffice it to say, he gets neither.

Not the most thrilling movie, and the non-ending leaves viewers unsatisfied, but Roddy makes it worth watching. The mythology of the golem was later used as the basis for the Extreme Ghostbusters episode "The True Face of a Monster".


It (1990) - Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, the "it" in this two-part TV mini-series is a demon masquerading as a killer clown named Pennywise, portrayed with gleeful delight by the inimitable Tim Curry. In the first half, Pennywise terrorizes seven pre-teen outcasts in 1960. Thirty years later, they reunite to stop the demon once and for all when it returns to their hometown. The novel was adapted again in 2017 as a theatrical film starring Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise, with the second half being released two years later.

It! (1967) is only available on a "Horror Double Feature" DVD paired with The Shuttered Room. Be sure to buy that release, as it has a factory-pressed disc. The "Archive Collection" re-release uses a recorded DVD-R, as per DVD Compare.

It (1990) is available on Blu-ray, though a portion of the miniseries has been removed in order to edit the two parts together more seamlessly. Unfortunately, the DVD release (which I won't link to) is even worse, as the picture has been cropped from its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio to 1.78:1 in order to fit a widescreen television.